Tag Archives: Steve Montador

As a follow up to Igor Makarovsigning with St. Petersburg (KHL), it appears the Blackhawks did execute a contractual release of the one-remaining year on his entry-level deal. That means Makarov is off the 50-man roster. In the Russian interview we cited in Friday’s story, Makarov said the Hawks released him and that claim now lines up. His name has now been removed from the team’s web site.

–All remaining regular season Blackhawks tickets go on sale Monday morning at 10am central via Ticketmaster. Standing room is now $27. First seven rows of the top level will cost $72 or $90 (60-72 if your seats are behind netting) depending on the opponent. To sit eleven rows off the ice on the weekend or against an Original Six or rivalry opponent now costs you $200. And you thought trading Brian Campbell would save us money….

If, as Rocky Wirtz claims, the Blackhawks are still operating in the red through this past season, the company will have its work cut out for itself this coming year.

As things stand now, the Blackhawks will spend a minimum-projected $77 million on player salaries in 2011-12. This is about an $8.5 million increase on what was spent in 2010-11, $68.5M. The Hawks spent $66.0M in 2009-10, including performances bonuses ($4.1M) that went penalized against the Hawks cap the following season.

While the team at this point sits roughly $3M under the $64.3M salary cap ceiling with the roster one player over the 23-man limit, several factors will have the team spending almost $13 million more than the “upper limit.” Read more »

Stan Bowman solidified his repackaged defense corps on Thursday, inking Steve Montador to a 4-year $11 million agreement. The $2.75M annual cap hit is slightly more than you would have wanted to spend, but the difference isn’t significant enough to debate over.

The Blackhawks had acquired Montador’s rights late Wednesday from Buffalo for the seventh-round draft choice Chicago received from Florida this past Monday when the Hawks sent Tomas Kopecky’s negotiating rights to the Panthers. Kopecky signed with the Panthers two days later; $12M over 4 years.

Montador, 31, isn’t huge (6-0, 210) but he’s tough and plays with an edge the Hawks lacked on the blue line. He’s best-suited as a third-pair defenseman on a contender, which the Blackhawks should be again in 2012. But he will kill penalties and fill time on the power play if need be. He’s solid all around, but not really above-average at anything in particular. He gets into trouble when he leans too heavily into the offensive end or in the physical side of his game. But he makes good reads, a solid first pass and is trustworthy. Montador also has a big shot the Hawks might use on a second power play unit and he’s adept and willing to patrol the crease on the defensive end. Read more »

A special Friday afternoon edition of TheThirdManIn~Radio today. Dieter Kurtenbach joins me to break down the Jack Skille-Michael Frolik trade piece by piece. We also have a long discussion and share our take on the process of how trade rumors take a life of their own, the true villains in the process and the relationship between main stream or professional reporters, amateurs, hobbyists, pretenders and the general audience. That and so much more.

— Michael Frolik not so “versatile” after all
— Where newest Hawk fits best
— Comparisons to Kris Versteeg
— Michael Grosek (I resisted the Nikita Alexeev urge)
— Reflections of the Jack Skille Experience
— Will Skille score 20 in South Florida?
— The Skille-Chicago match
— Particular thing the trade didn’t accomplish
— Why Alexander Salak may have been available?
— What made Salak’s inclusion in this deal particularly strange
— Dale Tallon giving up on two 2006 1st rounder in 4 months
— Word on two Hawks’ recent goaltending draft picks
— Q, again, refusing to put his best lineup on the ice
— Perfect sense flying over Quenneville’s head
— Most important line in hockey
— Love for the Mike Fisher deal
— Some ideas for if the Blackhawks fall out of the chase
— Zach Bogosian not in play for Chicago
— A all of a sudden a web site has gone all Eklund on the Internet
— Hawks defense a sloppy mess even in victory
— Block predicts something & winds up wrong a few hours later (big shock)
— “I’ve pumped Steve Montador for a long time now” (Thanks SL)
— And so much more…..

Show returns Tuesday night, February 15th in our usual weekly time lot, 8pm central at BlogTalkRadio.com/TheThirdManIn. We say this frequently but somehow never get to it… However, we have received a lot of feedback for our last month of shows and we’ll read and answer some of those emails on Tuesday night. If you are a regular listener and have anything you’d like to hear addressed on this week’s show, send an email to the address below and I’ll do my best to get through as many as I can.

Al Cimaglia of Sirius/XM Radio and HockeyIndependent.comjoined me on Tuesday night for 70-plus minutes of Blackhawks’ talk.

A great show. Al’s extremely knowledgeable and has keen slant on the goings on with the Blackhawks. We discussed the fallout from the Blackhawks’ performance in a 3-1 loss at Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday night and previewed the road ahead with games upcoming this week in Edmonton, Dallas and Phoenix to close out the Hawks’ six-game road trip.

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Among the topics discussed:

– Was Duncan Keith right to call out his forwards after Monday’s loss, no matter how correct his assertion is?
– What Keith is upset about and what may have set him off
– Is a “bag skate” in the middle of a road trip, on the Eve of 3 games in 4 nights a sound idea?
– We give Al the Hawks’ GM seat from now until the Feb 28th trade deadline, what would he do?
– ..Wait it out, or react now…
– Which popular former Blackhawk could be a right fit to return this month?
– Other names who could make a positive impact
– Where have the Blackhawks stood for the past three months
– Stat that doesn’t give impression things are so bad
– Record the Hawks must close out with to earn spot in postseason
– Talking sense, not fanatical nonsense, in Brent Seabrook negotiations
– What Seabrook may be thinking
– Sharp at center, positives and negatives
– Hawks around the net, who gets there & who doesn’t
– Who’s hot and who’s not
– Troubling sign again noted with Marian Hossa’s shot
– Q’s line allocations and responsibilities; Defining the 4th line
– Getting a jump start on RFA’s now; why it didn’t happen last year
– Odds Cristobal Huet will ever wear an Indianhead sweater again?
– Have the Hawks hit the physical and emotional wall?
– This year’s locker room vs. last season’s locker room
– And much, much more

The following is my column which ran in Wednesday night’s Committed Indian.

One thing struck me going back and watching last Friday night’s broadcast of the Hawks-Senators game that I felt shined a spotlight on what’s wrong with the Blackhawks this season.

In breaking down and assessing blame for the Senators’ power play goal at the start of the first period, Eddie Olczyk put Fernando Pisani under the bus for doing the very thing that has been missing since June 9th – being aggressive.

On Daniel Alfredsson’s goal, 49 seconds into the middle stanza, Olczyk ranted on and on over Pisani putting too much pressure on Sergei Gonchar as the top pointman quarterbacking the Sens’ power play. How soon we forget how these things were done for the last three years. Olczyk tried to make the point that Pisani’s over-pursuit of Gonchar disassembled the Hawks’ zone coverage. If Joel Quenneville and his staff have instructed their penalty killers to sit back in a passive box, then Olczyk is factually correct in this case.

But I wouldn’t be so quick to take Olczyk’s word for it. After all, what experience did he ever have playing in his defensive zone? And ask Mark Recchi how much he thinks of Olczyk’s hockey acumen. Read more »